COMAL.DLL was written by John White. The DLL allows Liberty BASIC programmers to access and manipulate
John describes COMAL as a "bridge between BASIC and COM." John would like to give credit to xtmouse, author of DispHelper, for providing the COM guidance allowing the creation of COMAL.DLL. Credit should also be given to Stefan Pendl for advocating for specific Liberty BASIC demos.
While fully functional, COMAL.DLL remains a work in progress. More Word(c) and Excel(c) functions continue to be added. John periodically announces updates of the DLL in the Liberty BASIC Conforums >API/DLL > [COM Access Library upload] thread. The latest available version of COMAL.DLL has been included in the archive files of this newsletter. It is possible that a more current version of Comal.DLL is available from the author at his [Web Site]. COMAL.DLL can also be downloaded at the [the Yahoo! LB Group] and at [Ben Scott's DLL's for Liberty BASIC] site.
With the download, you will also receive supporting files such as documentation and demos written in BASIC code.
MerlinLesson.lsn uses the Lesson Browser (only available in Liberty BASIC v4.x) to explain how to access and manipulate the MS Agent Merlin. Look for MerlinLesson.zip included in the archive files of this month's newsletter. Topics include
Merlin is not the only MS Agent supported by Microsoft. Two other favorites include Peedy and Genie. Merlin is the only MS Agent supported in this merlin.lsn demo program, though. Merlin comes pre-installed with WinME, Win2K and WinXP. For Win9x and WinNT, you will need to download and install the [Merlin] character.
To learn more about scripted language, read [Scripting Language Tutorial] by Alyce Watson (Newsletter #98).
To learn more about Speech API 4 Runtime and Voice Engines, read [Text to Speech] with Liberty BASIC by Stefan Pendl (Newsletter #118).